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Interview: AR Rahman, the writer (99 Songs)
Posted on April 10, 2021
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Sushila Ravindranath
April 10, 2021
Can’t open. Some problem. Says it’s private
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YAML92
April 11, 2021
ARR has been on a blitz promoting 99Songs and this has easily been the best interview by far. Great set of questions BR – thanks for not asking the usual… I could see mutual admiration between the two.. there was a very relaxed atmosphere between the two of you! Although I wished you could have asked more about the music, hope something of that sort happens soon possibly in a Deep Dive!
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Anonymous Violin
April 11, 2021
After the Kunal Rajan interview, this is probably one of the best interviews to come out of Film Companion South.
Rahman really makes it clear how much of himself he’s put into this project, and I can’t wait to see the results.
The icing on the cake was all those name drops 🙂
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Madan
April 11, 2021
Brilliant interview. Loved that little anecdote about meeting Vangelis. I don’t remember whether he has spoken about Vangelis as an influence before – you can hear Chariots of Fire sort of in Pudhu Vellai Mazhai. Would have loved to hear more about what they talked about. Whether Vangelis knew Rahman and did he say something to him about his (Rahman’s) work. Oh, and what all did Vangelis play for them, man, three hours is a lot. 🙂
About the music of 99 songs itself, I am gonna wait for the movie to judge where it fits in and whether that elevates the music. As you also observed in your review, it was kind of meh. Not a bad album at all but I was more like, this is all Rahman’s able to give when he HAS complete liberty? As such, you could say none of our composers have really excelled when they did come up with solo efforts not written around a film. I include in this the three Raja albums – HTNI/NBW/Thiruvasagam. When I say excelled, I mean these albums didn’t have any surprises, any dimension of his work we hadn’t already heard in the movies.
I guess you are either a composer (for films/program music as they call it in the West) or you are a songwriter (writing your own music for yourself, whether or not you contribute lyrics). You can successfully straddle both worlds to some extent (Nine Inch Nails) but you will be more successful in one of them and more identified in that.
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Anonymous Violin
April 12, 2021
@Madan:
I think creativity actually works best when you do have constraints. Otherwise it becomes a bit aimless, and you kinda just think “what am I supposed to do” (at least in my experience).
There’s several examples for this, but my favorite is probably Raja re composing the music of Hey Ram based on already shot visuals for LS’s music.
This might explain what happened with the solo efforts of IR/ARR being slightly underwhelming.
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YAML92
April 12, 2021
@Anonymous Violin and Madan: Agree that creativity in any field(like even science) needs constraints to really flourish. But when it comes to 99 Songs, it’s not that there are no constraints right? And this is not a HTNI/Thiruvasagam – those are true solo efforts but this is really an album for a movie.
ARR still has to compose for a movie/script and I think ARR said this is the first time when he had to really compose songs to help the movie move forward and not just standalone songs – partially agree – ARR has been known to compose songs which are too big for the movie (like Adiye/Rasaathi as said by MR in BR’s book).
So there are constraints for ARR in 99 Songs – usually the directors are his sounding board and this time too – Vishwesh seems to be someone with his own mind… so, unless ARR totally decided the song situations, I am not sure if that’s the reason.
To me, the songs mostly work well – just that a couple of songs sound slightly “off” in the album – I hope the movie kinda explains why (Like ARR says about the placement of Sai in 99Songs during the interview)
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Madan
April 12, 2021
Anonymous Violin: Right. It is said that this is the reason jazz primarily involves improvising AROUND a standard (though musicians also write lots of new compositions). Because when the standard gives you the framework, then it enables you to look for room to express yourself distinctly and take the standard to a new place.
YAML92: I get that 99 songs is STILL a film and still one where Rahman has to provide songs that fit with the film. What I am driving at is this is a film for which he wrote the script. So this time, he is in charge of the narrative and not a different scriptwriter or director. One would have thought that this would give him more freedom to go to places he didn’t get to in normal film assignments but that doesn’t really seem to have happened. Another factor here could be that the Rahman brand is so well entrenched by now that he would feel wary of surprising listeners too much. I think this is the problem for Raja too because in NEPV even with GVM telling him to deliver a new sound and letting him record with the BSO in London, the result, while great in its own right, wasn’t necessarily out of left field. Raja poked fun at Mani re Oru Poongavanam for asking him to write a song about heroine bathing in the pool but with all due respect, that silly situation seemed to have inspired a song that went much further beyond anything on NEPV. I think after a point, the music of these composers starts to belong to the fans and after that they are forced into some measure of self-imitation.
That is the way I look at 99 songs too. It’s not a bad album at all and it’s pretty fail-safe. But it’s also not really unprecedented coming from ARR; it treads very familiar territory.
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vijay
April 13, 2021
Madan, between 1985 and 1990, only Mani and KB pushed IR towards newer efforts. IMO, it was relatively not a strong period for IR as compared to his first 6 or 7 years. The reason could be that even if the situation was generic(like a swimming pool song) these two directors were anything but, and they were capable of not accepting the very first tune but for requesting something more specific. Remember how the tunes for nila adhu and thenpaandi seemayile got inverted. That was Mani’s request. IR also openly acknowledged KB for sindhu bhairavis’s songs. Punnagai mannan was a stellar soundtrack as well. Lesser directors depended solely on IR and his whimsical nature to deliver for them. The output became less consistent as the years went by.
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Madan
April 13, 2021
vijay: While I don’t really agree that 85-90 was a weak period for IR compared to his early years, I do agree that only Mani and KB pushed IR. That is the reason I mentioned what he said about Oru Poongavanam because I found it to be a strange observation.
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RP
April 14, 2021
Madan, I am not sure what you mean by NEPV was not from left field? Do you expect that IR would suddenly go all Synth with ARR/HJ type sound production for his songs ? I really think NEPV was a very different album coming from IR if you exclude the mandatory IR sang song . Yes couple of the tunes were in heard before raaga/scales but the way it was presented made it sound fresh and exciting . I mean Mudhal Murai and Satru Munbu are type of songs with singing and presentation and orchestration which were totally unlike IR of before. Again you have to understand every composer can only go so far from their identity without totally losing it. If you take a song like Thappad from Shamitabh it is totally unlike an IR song and would make someone wonder if it was done by Karthik. Shamitabh was one totally unlike IR album except for the Piddly song.
Coming to directors pushing IR to newer things. IR during his early years(as per his own admission) relied completely on his own self inspiration to come up with those songs film after film without regard of who the director was or the situation. That inner fire kept him going for a period of time. Ofcourse with age and time that wanes and he cannot generate that fire for the same situation again and again and that shows when directors just ask generic songs and take the first tune from him. He had to depend on opportunities to get inspired which were far and few as lot of top directors either lost their mojo or moved away from him.
I think KB and probably Bharathiraja(special relationship) were a few who had very specific requests which made him go beyond. With Mani while he may have asked for more tunes, i think IR had a special place for him(given that he even recommended him in his early career to the producers)which in subconscious way moves him to try different things for same situations. This is just my inference from listening to a lot of interviews of IR and also Mani speak. There are certain things which are unexplainable when it comes to IR. I honestly feel he has a great rapport with GVM and he can come up with spectacular stuff if they ever decide to work together again which looks unlikely. I have never heard IR open up with anyone as much as he did with GVM in those interviews he did for IR 1000 programme in Vijay TV. He seems genuinely comfortable with him.
Just my thoughts.
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Madan
April 14, 2021
“Do you expect that IR would suddenly go all Synth with ARR/HJ type sound production for his songs ? ” – It’s not for me to define what would be IR coming from left field. But…
“Again you have to understand every composer can only go so far from their identity without totally losing it. ” – Well, this is exactly what I meant when I said self-imitation. What is this ‘identity’ you mention and isn’t it something the audience defines on behalf of the composer? You or I want to hear that IR signature in everything he composes and therefore he is to an extent compelled to oblige us. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the capability, technically, to come up with something completely different to the point of being unrecognizable as IR if he made up his mind to. He can. But it will not be seen as living up to the ‘IR brand’. And the brand thus becomes a cage for the composer once he has accumulated a certain body of work. This is why IR could be more adventurous in say the early 80s because not only he had the trust of directors and producers based on his early successes but the audience didn’t yet know ENOUGH about what he could do. So he had the leeway to write songs like Endrendrum Ananthame, En Iniya Pon or Ithu Oru Nila Kaalam. But as you yourself say the songs of NEPV, even while they are different in terms of arrangement, do have to evoke ragas and scales we recognise as Raja. He can’t now go for a treatment that would be so different as to unsettle listeners.
I think you misunderstood what I said here. I am not criticizing what IR did on NEPV and I said it is great in its own right. What I am saying is even with carte blanche ostensibly granted by the director, IR himself has to compose in the image of ‘brand IR’. Because after a point, he becomes aware of what the audience expects from ‘an IR album’ and tries to meet that expectation.
You may say that everyone does this and I would give you the counter examples of Radiohead’s Kid A album or King Crimson’s Discipline. In jazz, Miles Davis was a chameleon par excellence, virtually birthing multiple jazz sub genres of his own. So it can be done but it is high risk and rarely do artists succeed in changing to a different direction without losing the support of their listeners. In the movie world, none of Martin’s non-gangster/crime films did well and then he gets blamed for ‘sticking to crime’. So he too resorted to the ultimate degree of self imitation with Irishman.
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shaviswa
April 14, 2021
@Madan
I disagree that IR did not change his style. If you listen to his songs between 1975 to around 1979/80, you would see a distinct style but more around melody and folk music. But around 1980 his music started getting into other areas especially Carnatic music. And his fusion experiments with Carnatic + Western, Western + Folk, started around this time. 1981 film Karaiyellam Shebagapoo is a good example where IR blended western with folk.
And this trend continue to the mid-80s when he suddenly switched track. His songs in Mouna Ragam, Punnagai Mannan, Nayagan, Sathya, etc. started to sound very different. The arrangements were more layered and the ragas and tunes used became more and more complex. And then he moved into another phase in 1990-91 which according to me was probably IR’s most prolific period. He was simply outstandingly brilliant during this time.
I think his music from the 90s all the way to NEPV sounded very similar. NEPV was the first time after a long time when he moved away from that standard template.
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Madan
April 15, 2021
“I disagree that IR did not change his style.” – But I never said he NEVER changed his style. I did mention examples of his early 80s songs where he was exploring new styles in different films. Because at that stage, a lot of scope for exploration was still available to him.
But thereafter, mostly everything he has composed are essentially variations within the identifiable signature style we know as Raja. The most innovative of these albums was Agni Natchatram but it still has the melodies, licks, chords we identify as Raja.
If anything, by the standards of the 80s, there was more variation in the 90s and onwards simply because he seemed to be throwing the kitchen sink at times to hit upon something that would work.
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shaviswa
April 15, 2021
@madan Another reason why Raja became repetitive is because of the sheer number of films that he worked in. 30-40 films a year is too much even for someone as prolific as him.
If only he had been a lot more discriminate in choosing his films – let us say 8-10 films a year and being careful about the films he chose. He may have churned out even better songs and all the exploration that you expected from him.
But then, the industry was very different then and he probably did whatever he did both due to financial and other compulsions.
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shaviswa
April 15, 2021
And that is where I have an issue with AR Rahman. For someone who has been choosy about the films he picks up, his output has not done justice to what his talent promised.
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vijay
April 15, 2021
“This is why IR could be more adventurous in say the early 80s because not only he had the trust of directors and producers based on his early successes but the audience didn’t yet know ENOUGH about what he could do.”
And thats what I meant when I said his 85-90 phase may not have been as exhllarating as his early years. Doesnt mean that phase was weak per se, but relatively speaking.A been there done that quality seeped in his songs for a lot of films.An Agni natchathiram or Punnagai Mannan was the exception not the norm. For most IFM composers their initial years are usually their freshest and most experimental whereprolificity didnt mean just numbers but quality as well
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Madan
April 15, 2021
“For most IFM composers their initial years are usually their freshest and most experimental” – Not only IFM but also in rock and pop music. It’s only in genres like jazz or classical where we see that composers can ‘change face’ late in their career. Because they don’t have such an obligation to live up to a brand as their appreciation is done in more academic terms (and for a great composer, the downside risk from experimenting is much less because they are not exactly raking in millions in those genres).
shaviswa: I don’t actually find him THAT repetitive for the sheer amount of music he composed. He did start to indulge in some self-plagiarism by early 90s, overwhelmed by his own pace of work (Hello Hello Come On from Inizhai Mazhai is an obvious remix of Rojapoo Adivanthathu, for eg). But other than that, he was quite inventive but always within the established Raja framework. It was more like rearranging a hundred different jigsaw pieces in different ways to ‘fool’ the audience into thinking they were being given something new. He himself used to indirectly allude to this calling it a yemaathara velai. So I don’t think even cutting down on output would have changed his approach that much because he would still have had to work within a box identified as Raja at some point. Which is what Rahman also had to do by and by. By late 90s Rahman’s sound had settled down. This is inevitable in film music. In music that is intended for a large audience like film music, the audience inadvertently defines these boundaries by rewarding the composer for working as per certain patterns.
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vijay
April 15, 2021
Madan, which IFM composer has sounded completely different after being 30+ years in the business? that is too much of an ask. I thought a couple of songs in NEPV and Megha were as fresh as they can be given the general quality of IR songs in recent times. Just that these kind of songs have been very sporadic. You cannot compare our MDs with some indie US rock groups who do one album every 2 years and spend rest of the time performing the same songs again and again. With composres like MSV,IR their evolution has always been incremental. But after a sufficient passage of time their “sound” would have changed significantly. For eg. Ninaithaale iniukkum(1978) doesnt sound anything like what MSV did in mid-50s.
With IR, I am not sure if it is brand consciousness as much as it just about him sticking to a set approach to music making, which means certain elements are expected to be there (eg. tune structure- which even if it is a Jazz-lite song like Poo poothadhu, failthfully follows the IR template). He needs an external push from time to time which the current crop of young directors won’t dare to do
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YAML92
April 15, 2021
@shaviswa “For someone who has been choosy about the films he picks up, his output has not done justice to what his talent promised.”
While I agree what each one of us feel about his output is very subjective, I feel most would agree that the very reason he was choosy allowed him to have a hit-rate that no other composer ever had before him.
Sure – his output may not rival the level of technical complexity of Raja’s albums nor have they reached wide and far within TN – but he hardly had few rank bad or forgettable albums till 2016 or so.
So him being selective actually gave him more perceived longevity, pan-indian appeal and a remarkable hit-rate.
Also @madan : I feel 99 Songs is probably the first major album ARR has played it safe like you say (other than some Vijay movies and random ones like STM/Mohenjodaro/JTHJ). So yes, probably that self-imitation aspect is starting to creep into ARR now.
But before that, I feel he had continued to subvert fans’ expectations of his music – like the album I – (remember thinking what a crazy song Ladio/Aila Aila were first – remember BR’s review too) or VTV(Aaromale – how did he even pull it off!) or Mom or even Mersal (I’d take Mersal with its random wacky tunes over say a Mohenjodaro).
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YAML92
April 15, 2021
Also, one more reason for the album to have more simple tunes is that it charts the progression of the movie’s character as he grows in his musical journey – this was clarified by ARR in some of his interviews. I think there are some songs like Humnava, Soja Soja which are quite different from his usual stuff. Just waiting for the movie to answer some of these questions – if the songs actually help in moving the story forward, then I think that’s probably a better yardstick for success than how fresh they are?
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Naren M
April 15, 2021
@shaviswa:
Is ARR being choosy with films for the sake of quality or is it that he is spending more time on other things like his music school and mounting big concerts? (of course pre 2020)
Listening to his interviews over recent years I would like to believe he has moved on to ‘teaching others to fish’.
For an admittedly ardent fan like me though, a ‘Taare gin’ per year is more than enough :).
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Madan
April 16, 2021
“You cannot compare our MDs with some indie US rock groups who do one album every 2 years and spend rest of the time performing the same songs again and again. ” – Er, Indie rock? Radiohead, who are British btw, have sold over 30 million albums worldwide and performed at Wembley. And FYI the most popular band of all times, the Beatles, changed dramatically from sugary boyband to experimental, psychedelic rock (and that is simply the most convenient catch all term I can find to encompass the sheer eclecticism of their later work). Though I blame the inability of our composers to do so on the audience; their (Beatles/Radiohead) audience had the maturity and adventurism to accept risks from their artists. A quick example of why that would not work here (and maybe less so than even in older times) – you mentioned Megha; Karthik Srinivasan of milliblog called the key change in the charanam of Kalvane bizarre. That is all the appetite we have for risks now.
I think Raja noticed this happening already in the 90s as songs with great harmonic work like Sitagathi Pookale weren’t getting noticed and more-of-the-same stuff like Enavendru Solvadhamma did much better in the market. So I don’t agree with you that Raja always needed an external push. Nobody pushed him to write songs like Endrendrum Anandhame. Nobody told him Agaya Vennilave needs polyrhythms. He has tamed his own subversiveness because the audience is responding better to conventional stuff that comforts them with nostalgic memories of vintage Raja. In which vintage Raja = Kanne Kalaimane or Rasathi Unnai.
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Madan
April 16, 2021
YAML92: Of all the songs you mentioned, only Aila Aila evokes the dynamism Rahman is capable of for me. Ladio is just a slavish imitation of modern dance music, nothing much to see there, at least for me. I think the problem, again, is somewhere Rahman has come to stand for sweet melody and not the experimentation he used to. This is how they get ‘typecast’ over a period of time. Songs like Pookale or Ennodu Nee Irundhal from I are more in line with what the audience expects from him. And they are not bad songs. They just don’t bring anything dramatically different to the table.
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shaviswa
April 16, 2021
@madan
Yes I remember Rajakumaran was kind of the tipping point. I remember buying the cassette and going on the train back to college. One of my friends wanted to listen to something and he took this cassette. He returned it after one listen and said the songs were very boring and these were the words he used – “Looks like Raja has lost his ability to come up with good songs.”
I was amazed to hear that since I loved Rajakumaran songs especially Sithagathi Pookkalae. Another album that I liked around that time was Paattu Padavaa – Nil nil nil, badhil sol sol sol was such a wonderful song but they all drowned in the AR Rahman tsunami.
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Madan
April 16, 2021
shaviswa: Right, Rajakumaran was an excellent album. It also had the brilliant Kaatula Kamba Kaatula. But at that time, it became a self fulfilling prophecy. A sort of “Rahman vanduthan, so Raja tholvi adaiyuvan” sentiment. People just tuned out of his work.
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YAML92
April 16, 2021
@madan – I see what you mean. Yes, definitely the sort of experimentation and dynamism which was there in the 90s have definitely been lost now in ARR’s music.
But here’s the thing right: ARR has always said ppl might get feel he’s getting repetitive if he tries to replicate what he did in the 90s – so that’s why he has consciously avoided that “big” sound which was the defining aspect of his 90s albums.
I’d curious in an alternate reality as to how listeners would react if he had continued his 90s sound till now. Would we get bored of it? We would probably again say he’s getting typecast over this type of experimentation then.
So no matter what, every composer is gonna get typecast…
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Madan
April 17, 2021
YAML92: Yeah but I am not talking about a SOUND. I mentioned only the dynamism of the 90s. That’s not a sound. You can still be dynamic, daring in a new sonic context. But that’s clearly too much to expect the audience to digest.
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KayKay
April 17, 2021
“Though I blame the inability of our composers to do so on the audience; their (Beatles/Radiohead) audience had the maturity and adventurism to accept risks from their artists”
Madan, is that always the case though? I remember when Michael Jackson’s HIStory came out, and there were complaints even among my friends that some of the songs sounded “weird” (to be honest, our musical vocabulary can be charitably described as BASIC) and everyone expected another “Thriller” or “Bad” bristling with danceable hooks. George Michael’s endlessly playable Faith was a mega seller, but the bolder and more experimental “Listen Without Prejudice” flopped.
I think as with films, one really needs either a formidable musical vocabulary, wide exposure to disparate styles and forms or a sheer appetite for experimentation to enjoy the off-beat stuff. And you’re absolutely right, an artiste becomes huge when fans lay claim to some ownership over their output, but frequently only the bits they like. And a great majority of them, yours truly included, belong to the “ear-candy” brigade. Most of us would hear “Oru Koodai Sunlight” and go “Jesus, what is this” and promptly go back to “Sahana” and “Vaji Vaji” for the 50th time:-)
And shaviswa, thanks for the “Karayellam Shenbagapoo” shout out. Every time there’s a Raja discussion, this lost gem of his slips through the cracks. The songs are so insanely catchy you practically forget the amount of bold experimentation at work.
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shaviswa
April 17, 2021
I was listening to the song Aala Pol Vela Pol today. This is a typical Ilaiyaraja folk + melody number. But then there are several other dynamics at play.
R V Udhayakumar’s lyrics – the song has several brilliant lines to it and he has clearly written them around the story, the characters of Rajinikanth and Meena. And then Chitra and SPB add more to this with their abilities to emote. Meena is this soft, gentle village belle and Rajini is the chieftain, the rough and tough guy. And just see how the song goes.
It starts gently with Chitra singing soft, the lyrics also highlighting her love and affection. And she is sending her friend to talk to the hero and requesting him to marry her.
Aalapol velapol aazham vizhuthu pol, Maman nenjil naan irupenae
Naalapol rendapol naazhum pozhuthu pol, Nanum angu nindrirupenae
Bathil kelu adi kannammaa …
Nalla naalu konjam sollamma ennamma kannamma hoi
She then continues to send her coy messages:
Em manasu mamanuku bathiramaa kondu sellu
Innum enna venumunnu utharavu poda chollu
And the words utharavu poda sollu is the key. She is sending her love messages to the chieftain, the leader, the entire village goes by this man’s word. So she too would want to follow him.
And then SPB takes over, with a bossy ring to his tone. He sends his orders back to Meena thus:
Kothu manjal thaan arachi nithamum neeraada chollu
Meenakshi kungumatha nethiyila sooda chollu
Meena then responds as:
Sonnatha naanum kekkuren sornamae anga poi kooridu
And Rajini is happy now and agrees to marry her:
Anjala maala poduren annathin kaathula othidu
So it is not just Raja’s tune at play here. This is the entire package that makes this song so wonderful and enjoyable. You can actually visualise the hero and heroine exchange their love notes when you listen to this song – and you will know who is the dominant person in this relationship.
This was where Raja excelled. The songs are brilliant – the tune, the orchestration and arrangements, etc. But in addition to that, the songs are crafted for the song situation in the film; it reflects the characters that are involved in the song. It takes the viewer into the film and tugs them into the essence of what the film is about.
I do not think there have been any other MDs in Tamil film music who have been able to get to this level of detail in their songs.
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Madan
April 17, 2021
KayKay: In the first place, I would say the audience for MJ/George Michael is a more pop/dance music oriented audience so resistance to change is bound to be more (compared to a Radiohead audience who almost flip to the other extreme of holding it against the band if they don’t change).
Secondly, failure is a relative word in this context. I cannot speak for the reception of Hisstory or Listen Without Prejudice in your circles but one sold 20 million albums and the other 7 million albums. I THINK for albums that attempted a break from the past work of the artist, those are excellent returns and perhaps labels should be blamed for being so greedy that they were not satisfied even with those numbers. Bit like WB sacking Tim Burton because Batman Returns was not blockbuster ‘enough’ even though it did spectacularly well for being a quirky affair.
By the way, not like I am a huge fan of Oru Koodai Sunlight either. I am not necessarily for experimentation for the sake of it. The artist still should find a way to express it in a structure that makes for a wholesome experience (unless the artist in question is a known experimental/avant garde operator in which case such rules don’t apply). I am more interested in cases where the experimentation does come off technically and artistically but it’s just the audience that is not prepared to go along for the ride.
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vijay
April 17, 2021
My point is those rock groups do 1 album per year or every 2 years, kind of similar to how Rahman paces his work, but even slower. They do more performances than fresh compositions. You cannot compare our MDs with them. IR’s sound in Agn natchathiram was’nt anything like what he did in the late 70s. Likewise what he did in last few years is quite different from his sound in the early 90s. The evolution is gradual. I gave the example of MSV’s Ninaithaale Inikkum in the late 70s and how different it is from his 50s stuff. My problem is more wit IR sticking to some (sub-conciously?) preset patterns in tune-making and rhythm arrangements and also the general presentation of the song(which includes a host of things from singer choice to mixing/recording to sound engineering etc.).
” So I don’t agree with you that Raja always needed an external push. Nobody pushed him to write songs like Endrendrum Anandhame.”
You are missing the point. enderndeum aanandhame and many other classics came in his early years(1979-1984, his best phase IMO). Like I mentioned earlier, good composers tend to be at their freshest and experimental in their early years. MSV has contributed several great songs for rank bad films in his early phase too. No external push was needed. But as time and idiot directors take their toll you DO need a push from time to time, especially for somebody like IR who churns out a lot of soundtracks per year. In recent times that push has come in the form of allowing him to work with or record with international studios/musicians. It somehow seems to inspire him.
One reason why songs like kaatuala kamban kaatula might not have been a bigger hit(it was a decent hit if i remember) is the presentation. Employing aged singers like SJ, well past their prime, may not have jelled well with the then youth warming up to fresher voices. And the tune by itself was standard Raja fare even if it was catchy.
Plus the rhythm sections in a lot of 90s songs left a lot to be desired. Every third song had the usual tabla patterns. If I like a song like say “muthu maNi maala” it is despite the tablas, not because of them. In recent years he seems to have shut this aspect out. Good.
“Day by Day” was a real surprise from Honest Raj. I still cant believe it was composed as a title song for a Vijaykanth film. Maybe it was done for some other film but reused as title song. Opportunity missed there.
But having said all this, I have’nt demanded at that time or even now, a completely different unrecognizable feel from an IR song. I am fine if the song has just about enough freshness to engage me(which is partly subjective) and not give me a clear deja vu feel. That is, songs where the Rajaisms are cleverly hidden or are subtle. Kalvane kalvane is a good example. If you look deeply the Raja signature is there, but still overall it is fresh enough for me. However, that recent Vijay Antony film done by IR, did’nt do much for me, despite it featuring SPB/KJY and the likes.
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Madan
April 17, 2021
“I have’nt demanded at that time or even now, a completely different unrecognizable feel from an IR song” – No more am I DEMANDING it. I am simply saying that a long time composer’s brand gets established to an extent where even if they are given liberty to compose as they wish, they will instinctively attempt to produce something close to their signature sound. They won’t try to break out of character even if they would like to just once in a while.
And I don’t agree that it has much to do with how many films Raja was composing at his peak. This discussion began with Rahman’s own work on 99 songs not really breaking new ground even though it was his own venture. So it’s not about volume of work but about the extent to which a composer’s image is established by his previous work. One doesn’t need an audience that DEMANDS something completely different, just an audience that would not voice DISPLEASURE at it. I don’t think we are there. We do have a belief that if it is a Raja/Rahman work, it should be recognizable as such. And we don’t understand how that expectation becomes a cage too for the composer.
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Madan
April 17, 2021
“And the tune by itself was standard Raja fare even if it was catchy.” – I can’t recall any of at least his popular 80s songs that the tune of Kaatula sounds like. If anything, it sounds more like what Rahman or Vidyasagar would have composed. It was like a Raja appropriation of what was going on then into his own style.
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shaviswa
April 19, 2021
Raja’s innovation were to be found even in run of the mill masala films like Thoongathey Thambi Thoongathey. This song in my opinion is a magnum opus from Raja but largely went unnoticed when the film was released. I remember that Naanaga naan illai thaayae, varuthu varuthu vilagu vilagu and summa nikkatheenga songs were very popular at tea stalls, buses etc. But do not remember people listening to this song much.
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shaviswa
April 19, 2021
I listened to Kaattula Kamban Kaattula today. Pretty funky arrangement by Raja but the lyrics were a big let down. Plus the chorus going dingidikkaa sounded pretty cringy.
After his split with Vairamuthu, Raja pretty much banked on Vaali and others and the lyrics in his songs were very very ordinary. Rahman scored on that by bringing Vairamuthu back from the oblivion that Raja had pushed him into.
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vijay
April 19, 2021
“We do have a belief that if it is a Raja/Rahman work, it should be recognizable as such. And we don’t understand how that expectation becomes a cage too for the composer.”
I am not sure if Raja is all that brand or audience conscious. How far he could go depended mostly on who he was collaborating with(especially post-90s). Even in the late 90s, when he collaborated with Kamal for Hey Ram, you had songs like isayil thodanguthamma or the laavaNi song which ended in a Wagnerian piece as per Kamal’s request. Same with his full fledged Jazz effort in Mumbai Express. It required either somebody who could request something specific(like Kamal) or a lesser director who could give him the complete freedom and resources(like London recording for Megha etc) to get something different out of him. But it does’nt happen often enough
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vijay
April 19, 2021
shaviswa, with due respect to VM, his lyrics were certainly not the mainstay of Rahman’s music or Rahman’s resurgence in the early 90s. In fact VM wrote a lot of inspired lyrics for IR between 1980 to 85. He became a bit formulaic during the 90s. Kannukku mai azhagu type of algorithmic lyrics. The algorithm here is ——-kku ——- azhagu. Fill in the dashes and even i can pen a song. VM benefitted more from his association with ARR than the other way around. And Rahman had some big hits with Vaali in Shankar’s films. Most of them were forgettable in terms of lyrics but provided the fun quotient needed for those songs, like in say Kaadhalan
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vijay
April 19, 2021
“Plus the chorus going dingidikkaa sounded pretty cringy.”
THose were his stamps, the less desirable ones although. Even in Raakamma kaiyya thattu, the chorus goes jaanguchakku jaanguchakku cha and so on and you immediately realize whose songs you are listening to. Rahman was clever in not using S Janaki much. With pop music a lot lies in the presentation of the song as well. IR himself was guilty of singing more often during this phase. And his male singer finds were ALL disappointments(Mano, arunmozhi, deepan, SN surendar and the likes). Thats a remarkable stroke of bad luck. If he had found a Hariharan or Shankar Mahadevan or somebody of that calibre in the early 90s before Rahman did, that may have helped extend the shelf life of his songs a bit. But up until late 90s he did’nt do that. By then it was too late
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vijay
April 19, 2021
” I can’t recall any of at least his popular 80s songs that the tune of Kaatula sounds like”
Iam talking about the feel of the tune and the way it is structured etc. Not talking about an exact replica of some earlier song but the style is not as diferent as how Day by Day was. It is an intuitive feel you get if you are very familiar with his repertoire. I can sniff out a fresh song of his from a mile away easily. Have been fooled only a few times. And in this song his usual suspects have sung it, which only adds to the familiarity. 4 years earlier vaazhavaikkum kaadhalukku je from the same pair in aboorva sagodharargaL was already a hit. I am not saying the tune is similiar but the style and presentation is’nt all that different. Maybe the arrangements were, but not the vocals part. And thats been one of my pet peeves with him. Hedid’nt concentrate enough on the vocal presentation of a song. At a time when somebody like Anupama could belt out Chandralekha in a truly western pop kind of singing style, IR stuck with his usual styles and singers. There were few glorious exceptions though-like Malgudi Subha in All the time, one of my favourite surprises from IR in the early 90s, and that too in a Bharathiraja film. Considering how ordinary Puthu nellu puthu naathu was I was’t expecting much but this was special.
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Madan
April 20, 2021
vijay: While I don’t think Kaatula is like Vazhavaikkum at all (other than the song situation itself which Raja can’t help), I grant the aspect of familiarity in the vocals. But by that yardstick, Ennavendru Solvadhamma was the most familiar sounding of the songs in that film and it was also the biggest hit, by far. So I would disagree and still say that in the 90s, discomfort with the new things Raja was trying was a bigger factor than weariness with ‘same old/same old’. I will add though that for youngsters, the same old aspect was a factor in weaning them/us off Raja and into Rahman (the exact point I had made with my Adho Megha Oorvalam write up, that song being the poster boy of same old starting with the absolutely cliche song picturization). And songs like Kaatula were perhaps not young/hip enough for the market that Rahman captured (which they couldn’t have been, a composer cannot just roll back time), nor familiar enough for those who did want more of vintage Raja.
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